Radio Curious

The history of women has existed as long as humans have, but it was not until the last half of the 20^th Century that women’s history received recognized academic attention.  Our guest, Professor Gerda Lerner was a pioneer in the movement to study and record the history of women.

Gerda Lerner led an extraordinary life from April 30, 1920 to January 2, 2013.  She was a historian, author and teacher, and ultimately a professor emeritus of history at the University of Wisconsin.  Her academic work was characterized by the attention she drew to the differences among women in class, race and sexual orientation.

Professor Lerner and I visited by phone in October 2002, began with her description why the distinctions among women of class, race and sexual orientation are important.

Originally Broadcast: October 1, 2002.

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Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass were good friends from the mid 19th century to the late 19th century, and were active leaders in the fight for the rights of women and blacks throughout their lives.  From time to time they got together to visit and talk about America, as they knew it. In this archive edition of Radio Curious recorded in May 1996, I met with Chautauqua scholars Sally Roesch Wagner and Charles Pace who portrayed Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass. We began our conversation when I asked them each to tell us what it was like to be an American during their life time.

Originally Broadcast: July 3, 1996.

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Few words in the English language have caused so much pain, hurt and emotion as the N-word. It is arguably the most consequential social insult in American history. The long history of the pejorative use of the N-word has given it an unusual power that extends to the judicial system, literature and social settings.

Randall Kennedy, a professor of Law at Harvard University Law School, is the author of “Nigger-the Strange Career of a Troublesome Word.”  His book chronicles the history of this word, in an effort to diffuse and neutralize it.

Originally Broadcast: March 19, 2002

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Crime and criminal justice is the topic.  Our guest is Emeritus Law Professor Gary T. Lowenthal, at the Sandra Day O’Conner College of Law at Arizona State University.  He’s the author of the 2003 book, “Down and Dirty Justice:  A Chilling Journey into the Dark World of Crime and the Criminal Courts.”

This program, recorded on January 7, 2004, and first broadcast in February 2013, began with our discussion about the power structure in the American criminal court systems, where the judge has the authority, but the power often rests with the prosecutor.  We later visit the background of sentencing laws first promoted by President Richard Nixon.

The book Gary Lowenthal recommends is “Seabiscuit” by Laura Hillenbrand.

You may learn more about Professor Lowenthal’s work here.

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Local railroad systems were once the primary, if not the exclusive means of shipping and travel between nearby communities as well as links to those far away.  The California Western Railroad and the Northwestern Pacific Railroad met in Willits in rural Mendocino County in northern California, about 135 miles north of San Francisco.  Virgin old growth redwood trees were logged in the forests along the 40 miles of track to the coastal town Ft. Bragg.  Rail Villages, those isolated communities accessible only by train track prospered and grew.  Then came the automobile and trucks.

In this edition of Radio Curious we visit with Richard Jergensen, president of the Mendocino Country Railroad Society, about the history of the California Western and the Northwestern Pacific Railroads, and what their presence did and can do in the future.  He is also the co-author of “How to Build with Grid Bean: A Fast, Easy and Affordable System for Constructing Almost Anything.”  Among a small part of his vast collection of maps, books, histories, posters and other memorabilia laid out throughout his home in Willits for our visit, Richard Jergensen shared a small part of this long story on January 20, 2013.

The book he recommends is “A Confederacy of Dunces,” by John Kennedy Toole.

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Songs of a political nature are not surprising given the similarities and parallel community structures of politics and religions with each community promoting the behaviors and concepts it supports as being the most appropriate.  The art of Political Song which has been crafted and heard world wide since time immemorial is the topic of this edition of Radio Curious.

In this program we visit with singer–songwriter David Rovics, a veritable troubadour and folk musician of our time.  He visited the studios of Radio Curious on December 9, 2012, and began our conversation when he described his work, his songs, and how he creates them.

The following is his biography taken from his website:  ”David Rovics grew up in a family of classical musicians in Wilton, Connecticut, and became a fan of populist regimes early on. By the early 90′s he was a full-time busker in the Boston subways and by the mid-90′s he was traveling the world as a professional flat-picking rabble-rouser. These days David lives in Portland, Oregon and tours regularly on four continents, playing for audiences large and small at cafes, pubs, universities, churches, union halls and protest rallies. He has shared the stage with a veritable who’s who of the left in two dozen countries, and has had his music featured on Democracy Now!, BBC, Al-Jazeera and other networks. His essays are published regularly on CounterPunch and elsewhere, and the 200+ songs he makes available for free on the web have been downloaded more than a million times. Most importantly, he’s really good. He will make you laugh, he will make you cry, he will make the revolution irresistible.”

Based in Portland, Oregon, David Rovics spends most of his time on tour.  The book he recommends is “Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves,” by Naomi Aldort.

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What does that word mean?  Why don’t you hear it on this radio station?  Can you use it in Scrabble?  Do you want some answers?   If so, don’t touch your radio dial even if your radio doesn’t have one.

Our guest in this edition of Radio Curious is the Steven R, Kleinedler, the Supervising Editor of the 5^th Edition of the American Heritage English Language Dictionary.

Curious as I sometimes am, I wanted to know where all the words came from in the 2,084 pages of the American Heritage Dictionary.   So, when Steven Kleinedler and I visited by phone from his home near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 16, 2012, we began when I asked to explain the origin of word lists that we now call dictionaries.

The book that Steve Kleinedler recommends is “Cryptonomicon,”  by Neil Stevenson.

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Consumer behavior is the topic of this edition of Radio Curious in a conversation with Geoffrey Miller, professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of New Mexico, and the author of “Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior”.

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We continue our conversation with Pulitzer winner Isabel Wilkerson, author of “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.”  In the years between 1915 and 1970 almost six million black American citizens from the south migrated to northern and western cities seeking freedom and a better life.

Wilkerson interviewed more than 1,000 people for her book. She is the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize and is a recipient of the George Polk Award and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. Her parents were part of the great migration, journeying from Georgia and southern Virginia to Washington D.C.

In part 2 of our conversation, recorded from her home near Atlanta, Georgia, on September 28, 2012, Isabel Wilkerson describes the inspiration behind her narrative non-fiction story of the six million African-Americans who migrated from the south between 1915 and 1970.

The books Isabel Wilkerson recommends are “The Ark of Justice,” by Kevin Boyle and “The Optimist’s Daughter,” by Eudora Welty.

Part one of our interview with Isabel Wilkerson is here.

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